Rock Your Phone

Your one and only option for installing jailbreak applications on your iDevice these days is Cydia. It has been the undisputed installer of choice for several years now, and even if a few others – Rock, Icy – tried to make a name for themselves, Cydia has always prevailed.

We’re so accustomed to Cydia that every time we hear about a potential new alternative, we get defensive very quickly. Change and competition are great, but the comfort of a househould name like Cydia is hard to break. But that’s exactly what the iTweak Store aims to do.

Surfaced a couple days ago, the iTweak Store presents itself as a web based alternative to Cydia. We sat down with Kyle Pierre, one of the developers behind iTweak, to learn more about what their project is all about and why we should be on the look out for them…

Ladies and gents, we’re back with the 5th episode of my favorite question and answer session. You guys have been coming up with some awesome, and sometimes, downright hilarious questions for me to tackle, and it is greatly appreciated.

In this week’s episode, I answer questions on Android, Rock App, how to troubleshooting jailbreak app issues, the iPhone 5, and so much more. You’re going to need an extra plate to hold all of this home cooking! Check inside for the full episode…

Rock’s dead. We all know this. Saurik told us that the Rock developers cut corners and did things the wrong way. Still, Rock did do a few things right that would complement Cydia well. The Real Experiences Rock.app was a real experience. It was snappy and clean. It had a colorful and eye-friendly theme. Most importantly, it was usable during fetches and reloads. When Rock opened, here’s what happened: you view the home page, navigate a bit, while fetches occurred with a small unobtrusive status indicator. Once completed, a quick refresh interrupts you, then you’re good to go. You navigate to updates and the results are preloaded. The page loads quickly, if not instantly.

The news fell a couple days ago that Rock Your Phone had been acquired by Cydia. This is without a doubt the biggest business move ever made in the jailbreak community, and it is a clear sign of the potential of “underground apps”.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Rock even though it had some really neat features. We’ll all remember how fast it loaded as well as its backup feature, among others. Is this going to come to Cydia now that Rock is dead?

I remember my good old Nokia 8210. It was about 10 years ago and this nice little piece of technology would already let me create different profiles to fit different situations of the day. For example, I had a “night” profile where everything was silent with no vibration; I had a “work” profile where everything was silent with vibrations; I had a “normal” profile where everything would ring and vibrate, etc…

Fast-forward 10 years and about 10 other cellphones later, and here I am, with a $560 iPhone not capable of creating different profiles. It’s not a big surprise. Apple is deliberately handicapping the iPhone and releasing must-have features (hint: copy/paste) one at a time.

Fortunately for iPhone users, there is the jailbreak community which really helps make the iPhone the best phone by developing all these important features that Apple won’t let you have until year 2027.

MyProfiles is one of these great applications only available for jailbroken iPhones, and lets you create different profiles for your iPhone. Find yourself constantly changing the settings on your iPhone depending on what you’re doing or where you are? How about getting alerted when a critical email comes in from your boss? What about being able to sleep at night without being disturbed, unless it’s a call from a loved one? Wish you didn’t have to keep changing the auto-lock function when you’re charging at your desk? Do all of this and more with MyProfiles!

Features:

Custom alerting of email based on Subject, Sender, Sent Only to You, and Mail Accounts. Custom alerting of SMS messages and missed calls based on caller phone #. Modify the Vibrate Pattern so you can be quietly alerted to a specific email. Repeating Alerts for Email, SMS, and Missed Calls. Silence Calls via WhiteList or BlackList Escalating Rings and Vibrate 1st then Ring Adjust WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Push Email, Auto Lock, and 3G based on Location, Time of Day, and more. Automatic rules engine to enable profiles Manual Override Profile by holding down the home button and pressing up and down on the Volume buttons.

I haven’t personally tried MyProfiles but I hear great things about it, even though it’s still in beta. MyProfiles is available for jailbroken iPhones only via Rock Your Phone.

If you’ve used Cydia, Icy, or even Appulous, the concept of an alternative to the App Store is old news to you, but soon there will be a new kid in town that will be the first App Store competitor using BitTorrent technology. This new app for jailbroken iPhones only is called appDowner.

appDowner was created by developer Alec Renolds back in 2008 with the idea to create a simple BitTorrent client for the iPhone. Unfortunately the project was put on hold for a while due to personal issues. But Renolds is now back at it and has expanded his original concept to create a complete replacement to Apple’s App Store.

Unlike the App Store, there will be no app approval process and most applications submitted will be available for download within a week. appDowner can also be used as “client for non-app related downloads”, which in other words means you’ll be able to illegally download music directly from the app.

Something that’s not really clear about appDowner is whether or not you will be able to download cracked applications for your iPhone.

We’ve seen our share of App Store replacements. The 2 most serious ones, Cydia Store and Rock Your Phone, haven’t reached a critical audience yet. Will appDowner be able to do that?

appDowner is still being worked on and it should be available in Cydia for download soon.

Following the opening of the Cydia Store earlier this week, there is now another alternative to the App Store called Rock Your Phone.

So how does Rock Your Phone work? First you have to sign up for an account on www.RockYourPhone.com and download the their desktop client. After launching the desktop client, you will have to plug your iPhone to your computer and install Rock Your Phone on your iPhone. This operation just takes a few minutes. Once installed, you will have the Rock Your Phone icon showing up on your iPhone springboard.

You will then be able to download apps either from the desktop client or directly from your iPhone. If you download from the desktop client, you will have to sync your iPhone to install the downloaded apps.

The good thing about Rock Your Phone is that you don’t have to be on a jailbroken iPhone. I repeat, your iPhone doesn’t have to be jailbroken to install Rock Your Phone. This is truly a big plus! Note however that installing Rock Your Phone might wipe your warranty… Another good thing about Rock Your Phone is that all apps come with a 10-day trial. You can try the apps for 10 days before deciding to buy them or not. This is what the official App Store should have offered since the beginning…

Now for the bad… Well, this is a beta software so it’s still very buggy and a few people are having issues with it and had to restore. It’s not a big deal but I see how that could be annoying. So far there are only 4 applications for sale, which is understandable since the store just opened.

As stated above, Rock Your Phone works for iPhone 2G and 3G (software versions: 2.0.1, 2.1, 2.2, 2.2.1). The iPod Touch is currently not supported but it might be soon. The desktop client can be installed on Windows XP and Vista, as well as on Mac OS X.